I'm not the flagging kind of person, but sometimes I wish I was. If only I was a big, untouchable whale with 100k SP, I would flag the hell out of all those spammy promo messages...
Soure
Promoting Your Business
I've been in marketing long enough to know that promoting your business is important. You need to get the word out about your service in order to get clients. I don't have a problem with that.
But I always assumed people were aware of the fact that there is a difference between getting the word out, and just plain spam.
Promoting your business means targeting users that might have an interest in your service - potential clients, so to speak. Leaving your promotional message on everyone's posts, without bothering whether those people have ever shown any interest is not advertising, it's spam.
There's a big chance I'm not going to make myself very popular by writing this post, but I'll let you in on a secret: I stopped caring about popularity a while ago. If we want to save SteemIt and make it a better place, trying to become popular isn't the way to go. Addressing the problems is. (Not that I expect things will change because I'm addressing them, but at least I'll get rid of some of my frustration.)
Everywhere I Go
Not so very long ago, I bumped into one comment from @partiko after another. Don't get me wrong, I love what @partiko is doing for the platform, they're doing a great job helping out new users and I can only applaud that. But apparently they missed the entire idea of promotion versus spam.
I thought they had stopped, since it had been a while since I had seen one of their comments, but a quick glance at their comment feed shows me they haven't.
Now, at least they give an upvote to the posts they leave their copy/paste comment on.
If someone from @partiko reads this: I'm not trying to bring you guys down. I want you to succeed. I'm just not sure this is the way to go to get the word out about your service. Personally, I was so sick and tired of seeing that same message on my posts over and over again, I simply stopped using the app. I'm sure that is not your intention, and all I want to do is make you aware of the fact that there should be other ways to promote your services, without leaving those annoying comments over and over again.
But now I'm not receiving the @partiko messages anymore, there's a new kid in town. No matter where I go, I bump into those @steem-bet comments. I'm pretty sure you've seen them around, because they are all over the place.
As you can see, I flagged it - my first flag in months. But I'm not willing to spend my precious VP on flagging a bot. Lol, I even commented on a couple of their comments, but talking to a bot is like talking to a brick wall - you can't expect it to reply.
I have never shown any interest in betting. I never visited Magic Dice or any other betting apps that are available on the Steem blockchain. I'm pretty sure that goes for a lot of you.
So I wonder what they are trying to achieve by targeting people that will probably never visit their site. The more of their comments I see, the less I feel like visiting.
Promoting your service to a targeted audience... that I would understand. If you left a comment on a post written by @fullcoverbetting (I'm sorry, Peter, for using you as an example. But as your username and post content implies, there's a chance that you might be interested in joining their site) that would count as TARGETED advertising.
Every marketer knows that it is useless to try to sell garden tools to someone who doesn't have a garden. And the more you push them, the smaller the chance they will actually buy.
Just like for @partiko, I do want @steem-bet to be able to make their business a success. The more successful projects we have here, the better it is for the Steem blockchain.
But again, I don't think the way you're trying to achieve name fame is the right way to go.
It could just as well be only me who is extremely annoyed by these messages, but to be honest, I doubt it.
There are more than enough things on here that need some work before we can expect that the Steem blockchain will be taken seriously by the 'outside world'. We definitely don't need that kind of spam that only makes things worse.
But that's just my two cents...
Images have been sourced inside the post. Images that aren't sourced were create with The Logo Creator 7.
It's so good to hear this from someone who has worked in marketing! The way I grew up, surrounded by unwelcome advertising, I've always assumed that advertising was equal to spam: If my favorite TV show got interrupted by someone telling me I should buy their tampons I'd never need, or a perfect view of a sunset be covered by a billboard telling me about the best divorce-lawyers in town, I always supposed that the target group was simply so large that it was simply worth the bother to spam everyone in, including myself.
As a result, I managed to tune out any types of ads. If anyone started telling me about anything they were selling, I would immediate raise my suspicion-shield. Consequently, I would give myself an extra hard time getting informed about products and services. On the other hand, if a third party told me about a positive experience they had with something, I'd pay more attention to it... but I'm sure we're all too familiar with sneaky modern ads, usually popping up on your screen, that use exactly this technique (particularly for scammy investment schemes).
I haven't used Partiko either yet, though I've been promised rewards. Now I'm realizing that it might be because of this. Too much advertising turned me off of what otherwise could be a good product.
I think most of us grew up surrounded by unwelcome advertising. And what you say is true: the targeted audience of commercials that interrupt YV shows is probably big enough to 'justify' it. And it has proved itself to work. Thanks to modern technology, we can now often just simply fast forward, skip all the ads.
But when it comes to that kind of advertising (or even movies and TV-shows), I'm actually more annoyed by the subliminal messages they send. Because everyone can identify a commercial as a commercial, but there are so many underlying messages they're sending, and not everyone can detect those. (I'm like a human subliminal message-detector when it comes to commercials, TV shows, magazines etc, lol)
You could say those @steem-bet comments are somewhat targeted, since most people who don't know any better, do come here for the money. And that's exactly what they promise, ... money.
I am fascinated by the underlying techniques of advertising - there are so many smart ways to get a message through, but annoying people with truckloads of comments isn't one of them.
I do wonder what triggers the bot, because I haven't received a message on this post yet, and I've checked @penderis' last posts, and he didn't get any indeed. Maybe the bot is allergic to BS?? Sorry, @penderis, only using your own words... ;0)
could be transfer monitoring instead of caring about the posts, maybe rep etc or just plain hey they using another betting site. since if you pull a transaction you have a lot of info to determine a heuristic. Nothing but bullshit :)
I have been checking the wallets of the last couple of people that received their message. It's pretty interesting how much you can find out by going through other people's wallets. But that's beside the issue, lol.
Seems they have very little in common.
Anyway, I noticed spaminator has started to take action by leaving a comment/warning. Hopefully, they will get the message soon.
I just 'hide' spammers and trolls. Jiving them no attention works best.
I agree. It's like in real life: reward good behavior, but don't feed bad behavior.
I couldn't help myself, though - I had to get rid of some frustration. That's why I wrote this post. it was either that or explode, lol
I notice I have seen lots of those comments and I agree with your way of thinking, good luck to them but I think they do over do it with tthese comments
I agree.
And it seems we're not the only ones. Spaminator has been leaving warnings on the @steem-bet comments these last couple of days...
And apparently, spamming is not the only thing they are doing...
I just bumped into a post by @crypticat that exposes they go a lot further than just posting spam.
I checked out his post I will be staying away from that mind you I would have anyway I am not big into betting
I am right there with you. I went through all the phases of anger with these troll bots. Now like @konelectric, I just hide them and now barley see them except on others posts. I find that the cheaper the cost of the actual advertising method, the easier it is for these developers to create spam. I guess it must work for them. Good point and you feel better (maybe) for writing this and I feel some of my frustration has left me just by reading it. :-}
I used to stick to the 'safe' topics, making sure not to create discussion - I hate confrontations. But these last weeks, frustration has been piling up, and I felt like keeping my mouth shut about everything isn't helping at all - I only get more frustrated. It indeed felt like a relief to let it out for a change (not really 'for a change', because I have been writing more of these posts lately, lol)
Better out than in! You are not alone. I am the same way.. Hardly ever flag or write negative feedback. I try to avoid it, because somehow I feel worse after I do it. Well, for what it's worth, It speaks to your caring and easy going personality.
Thanks, @bdmillergallery. I am a nice girl, but sometimes things get too much out of hand to just keep my mouth shut. These last couple of weeks, I've written a post about Steemmonsters, Drugwars and now Steem-bet. At least, steem-bet hasn't tried to convince me I was the bad guy here. No name-calling yet, as Drugwars did.
Maybe that's a good thing, because we all know how Drugwars turned out, lol.
On top of that, it seems like steem-bet goes a lot further then only spamming posts - I just bumped into a post by @crypticat that raises even more questions about the site.
I just don't get it.... Everyone knows that the Steem blockchain really needs some good publicity. Still, some people manage to make things even worse. I guess that's what you get when money is involved... human kind will probably never change...
These are all valid and spot on points, but your last one speaks the truth..
They will not change. I fear these spamming advertisements and such will only get worse as the audience grows. I do not have the answers. I suppose there is really no way of controlling it when the platform is decentralized.
Best thing to do is block them.
Thanks for the link to @crypticat. Checking it out now!
:-)
The entire idea of a decentralized platform.is great... in theory. Too bad most people are not responsible enough to handle it properly...
I flagged @steem-bet the other day. They were commenting on my lovely @tasteem review of a tuna restaurant.
Now I've used @steem-bet before, but they really bothered me (they are also dishonest) and I stoped. I've downvoted several of their posts and supported people for calling them out. So I will support you, too.
@partiko definitely does comment spam, but since they aren't a casino it's less annoying. Also, it comes with an upvote, it's not huge but it's an upvote. They also appeal to people who don't just want to roll away their Steem.
Anyway, I like your attitude of not caring about your rep. You are doing the right thing. They spam, you downvoted. If they don't want more downvotes from you they should avoid spamming your posts and perhaps apologize. I'll even remove all my downvotes from them if they apologize to me.
Like I said in the post - I haven't nothing against @partiko. They are doing a great job. I just don't want them ruining the good thing they have going.
I'm not going to make a habit of flagging, though. This was only the 2nd time in the 17 months that I've been here. I think the VP is better spent when used to reward newcomers or not-so-newcomers for good content.
We definitely don't need anymore flag wars. Steem's reputation is already bad enough as it is. I'm just having a bad week, and frustration has been building up... glad I decided to make this post and get some of the frustration out (and even happier that
isn't true, lol. I'm very relieved I didn't make a fool of myself after all :0) )
I just found out about the post written by @crypticat in which he mentions the spam comment on your post. Apparently, there's more to the site than just spamming...
Right. I didn't want to change the topic since this is about spam. Let's just say they aren't going to stop spamming. Anyway, if you bad mouth them enough the other gambling sites may upvote your post especially if you call them out for being decent.
I'm a good girl, @abitcoinskeptic - even though the posts I published these last three weeks can make it seem otherwise, lol. I'm not the type to bad-mouth anyone (most of the time, lol) - I'm just saying what I see.
I don't even agree with the policy to get upvotes just because you bring down other sites - that's not fair either, and it doesn't speak for the ethics of the other sites.
Plus, I don't think I believe in honesty/decency of gambling sites in general. You don't set up a gambling site to lose money.
As I read in someone's comment recently: no matter what, the house always wins. So smartest thing to do: invest in the house :0)
All the other gambling sites definitely have their problems. I still use them from time to time when I am bored. As far as gambling no red lines crossed.
Anyway, I just noticed a new post by @steem-bet and I shared @crypticat's post with them and asked why he didn't get stuff for promoting them. You know what they say, no publicity is bad publicity.
No problem with mentioning me! Maybe it attracts Some new followers.
lol. The fine line between promotion and spam - I hope this was some promotion for your account :0)
Agreed!
Posted using Partiko iOS
I think I am ad blind, maybe should go see a spam doctor so I can see spam again :)
Happy you... stay away from that doctor!
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Yeah, I have across the steem-bet ad so many times. It's crazy how often I have seen them. I get the bots for some things, like the front end platforms and welcoming newcomers, but steem-bet seems to be a bit aggressive. It's actually really crazy.
Ren
aggressive... that's the word I couldn't think of, but it describes it exactly.
I don't mind a bot now and then, although I think the number of bot comments in the introduceyourself tag is way too high too...
The bots have gotten crazy in the introduceyourself tag for sure. It's one of the reasons we do a personal message before we put in our image and informational response. (much thanks to @brisby!)
Often the new people aren't quite sure what to think. I had one young man tell me that he was almost afraid to comment on any of them because he had seen some crazy pink comment. I told him most were bots, but if he ever questioned one, he could contact us in the Steem Terminal or ask us specifically.
A little sad for sure.
Ren
True. I can imagine people get scared away by all those bot comments.
Btw, I started to send newcomers I delegate to to the Steem-terminal Discord server, because I realized that delegating SP alone was a little short-sighted. But I don't have the time to explain more over and over again.
After replying to one of partiko comments that informs me of my 3000 partiko points and unable to login through steemconnect to its app and it replied 😊 then I replied again. It stopped 😂 I told them clearly why I'm not interesting on their app😊 they even commented on esteemapp post to use partiko😂😂😂😂 funny. Steem-bet was once appeared on my post and I told them I'mnot interesting on betting due to my beliefs😂 see.. I always talking to the Bots, especially checky and cheetah😆
I think I flagged my own post once or two at the first week on steemit😂 then I flagged a plagiat a year ago. When I found out it drain my VP too... never flag anything eversince😅..
I like it when you throw your tantrum through a post @simplymike 😉 just straight to the point and you love "taking side" 😉
Lol, I had to go look up the word 'tantrum' - never heard it before.
I noticed I do it quite a lot lately. Strange, because I usually try to be on everybody's good side. I normally try to stay as neutral as I can be. I actually don't believe in 'taking sides' - there are at least three sides to every story: one person's, the other person's and then there's the truth :0)
But I have had such a bad week, and frustration was piling up, so I had to do this post or I would have exploded. 😂
😂 😂 😂
I like flag.. especially the red and white one 😊 so, I thought that I could hide my bad post from others while I have no followers at that time 😂 silly me😂😂😂
And you did taking side..
One person is you
Other person is full
Truth is steemit
That's your 3 sides😁 at least you don't write something about the forever flagging war between the witness😂😂
I don't want to get caught up in that.... staying as far way from that as possible 😂
There's an even bigger chance that spamming won't make companies doing it popular! I noticed that Partiko's comments are getting flagged quite a lot lately.
I haven't actually gotten much in the way of spam. I'm a Partiko user as well and wouldn't mind the vote that goes with the Partiko one. ;D Maybe it's because I either don't post often enough or my timing is too out of sync, being in Australia.
Posted using Partiko Android
I noticed the same. I talked about it with someone who used to be a partiko mentor, and he said he had addressed it when talking to the devs. Those comments indeed get flagged a lot. So, I'm guessing it doesn't really help their case, which is a shame, because they're doing a lot of good for the platform
.... and you have received new SPAM comment (Steemdunk)... :) Maybe they want promotion in some of your next posts.. :)
That's my own fault. When I left Steemdunk, I forgot to switch off the permission to upvote me every once in a while - which comes with that comment.
I've seen the Steem-bet bots all over the place and I'm hoping it won't comment on any of my post anywhere in the future.
Posted using Partiko Android
I'm going to try to figure out what exactly it is that triggers that bot, because I noticed it's not completely random. Some people seem to get the comment, other people don't.
Comment spam on my blog was one of the major reasons I stopped using @steem-ua - so patronising, too! - the other was that, the way @steem-ua is configured, it funnels rewards upwards. So I was delegating 250SP to see votes of between .04$ and 0.07$ with the added insult of spam all over my blog. Bye-bye @steem-ua.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by simplymike from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
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AMEN!
Yo @simplymike. You won my Cocatrice! I need to know where to send it. Thanks! 😁
Hey @coolbrowser. Awesome. Cocatrice rules!
@monstermother is my main SM account
Your card has been sent! Thanks! You’re awesome! 😁
It starts to get out of hand :-/ I love @partiko but I too am hoping they are going to spam less and less... Starting with the 'posted with partiko' below each comment because it's keeping me from using it as much as I'd want :D And @steem-bet and I've seen the first spam from Appics too. It sucks, it's not 'targeted', and it bloats the chain. What if 100s of apps start doing this? I've seen the first spam below a dead persons post even :-( Makes me sad.
I haven't seen the Appics ones yet.
I can get the 'posted with Partiko' message, but not the repeated messages that are reminding me I have x Partiko points left. If I decide to use the app, I know how many points I have.
At least spaminator has started replying to the steem-bet comments, and it looks like they stopped... for now.
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Thanks, @thekittygirl. Most of the time, I just keep my mind shut, because I don't want to run into confrontations (I hate confrontations) - only just had one with the guys from Drugwars three weeks ago. But sometimes I get so annoyed that I don't have a choice... it's either make a post about it, or explode out of frustration :0)
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I get to a point where I am just tired of the endless promotional messages... and I find myself — like you — that I was a big whale who could just flag these comments just enough to make them invisible. Maybe I don't see as many of them as you do @simplymike because I am not into or follow any gaming/betting accounts. Or maybe that doesn't even make a difference.
The thing that troubles me more these days is that 80% of my feed seems to have been reduced to "empty" DrugWars "battle" posts and "Actifit updates." I realize this is general social media here, but I am still a little disappointed that actual content seems to be getting scarcer and scarcer.
I still haven't figured out what triggers the comments. I'm not really the betting kind of person, and I've checked some of the accounts that received those messages, but couldn't find anything they had in common. Fortunately, Spaminator started to interfere, and it looks like they've stopped, for now.
Feeds being reduced to empty SM-, drugwars or actifit posts is what you get when you give people upvotes for posting under your tag. It's a different way of advertising, but just as annoying as those spam comments, imo.
I guess the fact that people are actually losing money when posting the drugwars posts and boosting them with bot-votes hasn't spread enough yet, since I still see a lot of people doing it.
I've also seen some discussion in the SM Discord channel about changing the terms to get an upvote from the bot. I'm running a Steemmonsters experiment in which I'm trying to build my deck without investing any other money than what I can earn on Steem with that account. I assume my deck would have been a lot stronger by now if I would just post the regular 'daily quest reward cards' screenshot with one line of text and then get it upvoted by the bot every day. But I can't bring myself to do it. I'm not saying I'm completely innocent - I've definitely done so with my SM accounts in the past, but at one point I couldn't justify it anymore, so I stopped doing it.
And that goes for everything. As I mentioned to Asher last week, my posting rate has dropped. I used to post daily, now I'm glad I can get a post up 3 times a week. I could easily solve that by using Share2Steem or Appics or Drugwars to make a meaningless post every day and get some upvotes that come in automatically, like from SBI - but I think there are enough of those already...
Money (even when it is as little as it currently is with the price of Steem being this low) does weird things to people...
I think I also got spammed the other day but looks like someone is already working on on flagging and down voting some of them. Not a great way to market their service. Best way to get people on board is making waves in the platform to get people talking about the service. Giving big fat upvotes would not be such a bad idea lol.
I noticed Spaminator is on it, indeed. It also seems to work, since it looks like they stopped, for now...
Brava to you for caring enough about the blockchain to speak up, @simplymike! I agree - we (the steem community) need to figure out some way to discourage spamming, whilst not having a central control of our decentralized platform.
I actually think TPTB should allow wallet spam, because it's kind of a balance. People can
spam to their heart's contentget the word out, but it costs them to do so. Then, if someone wants to send me 0.001SBD every day to advertise their bot, service, or picture of their cat, I'd say, "Go for it!" 😂Believe, it gets annoying too. Just yesterday I asked someone to please stop sending me wallet messages. It wasn'y even worth the 0.002 'donatiôn' anymore...
I have the promotion is crossing a level...and too much of anything is injurious for health.....the continuous promos message is reaching to all possible platform...like discord too .affecting many users to not to look at them.
Posted using Partiko Android
That's why I thought it was important to address it. It's something we can't just ignore, because the problem is getting bigger every day
@simplymike
This is so true! And trying to garner goodwill, not annoy the crap out of people by spamming (:
From the amount of comments I got on this post, I think I can conclude goodwill is the last thing they garner :0/
I so agree with you. I am trying to give that message to the Twitter enthusiasts that are doing the #seven77 challenge and are starting to tag people that are famous and they don't know. Such a bad idea. It gives a bad name to Steem - but I don't think anyone is listening LOL
Let"s hope not. Steem's rep is bad enough as it is :0(
Simple! No response! Ignored! That's my motto as they work on a strike rate of 1 to 10. Send out 10 messages and get one hit. Send out 100, or any other number and apply the same formula. Very irritating!
Blessings!
I'm'happy' to see so many people agree on the fact that they are irritating as hell...
Totally bad marketing- it looks so desperated and spammy.
Resteemed.
Thanks for the support. The more people who put their weight behind it, to bigger the chance the message will come across... I hope :0)
Yesh, agree. There's better ways to solicit interests from a potential target market instead of just pelting everyone ever with the same message. I do appreciate all of these new initiatives that people are trying to get off the ground, but I also now tune out repetitive comments that I see everywhere because they just feel so impersonal and probably not relevant to my particular interests. And that's ineffective advertising, methinks.
Great article <3
agreed. I can think of a hundred other ways to gain name fame... this is not helping their cause.
I always wonder... we have so many developers on the platform, but we also have so many (former) professional marketers on the platform.
This place is all about community. Why don't they work together?
You can't expect from a developer that he's good at marketing, just like you shouldn't expect from a marketer that he can code.
his problem could be so easily solved if people teamed up and everyone played the part he was good at...
100k SP won't make you untouchable...remember that there are whales that have 7 digit SP 😂
Personally I don't really mind those messages (and surprisingly when I post with Partiko I don't get them either), but indeed, there is a pretty interesting line between spam and advertising. When someone thinks it's spam, they are spam, and when they don't, it remains as advertising. Heck, sometimes I even think that some post signatures are considered as spam, they are so intrusive and you must scroll past all of them in order to reach the comments...
I must admit I am guilty of signature spam, lol
Couldn't agree more with what you said. The comment spam is getting really annoying and it's about time someone spoke up about it.
The ones from Partiko didn't bother me that much, but the Steem-bet spam sure does.
I haven't followed up these last couple of days, but before, I noticed loads of those comments got downvoted. I assume it will get the message through to them eventually.
Right...... Like maybe if I only used it like 1 time every month or 2, hit me with the spammy promo. But I use @Partiko 99% of my Steemit time. Maybe change it up instead of the same tired copy paste message.?
I really like Partiko too...... but they need to opt out on the spammy promo for every day users like me. Target those who have not logged into Partiko for longer times. But the upvote is nice.
Posted using Partiko Android
Yep, at least they leave an upvote.
I get the messages from Pafrtiko because I delegated some of my SP to them.
I appreciate that they are thankful, but they don't have to let me know over and over again, lol.